(1) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to stackable bags and a system for dispensing stackable bags. More precisely, the present invention relates to a system for dispensing stackable handle bags using a hook adapter and a breakaway protruding area integral with the front and rear bag walls, and to stackable, breakaway bags useful in said system.
(2) Described of the Related Art
As everyone has seen when he or she passes through a grocery or discount store check-out line, there is a box boy or grocery bagger who loads the groceries into a bag, which is usually made from paper or plastic. For convenience of the customer and efficiency of the business, this bagging operation is performed as quickly as possible with very little wasted motion.
Many different methods have been devised to simplify yet expedite the procedure of filling the bag with goods or groceries. Currently, the grocery bags found in many stores arrive at the store in neatly stacked bundles called bag packs. The bag pack is composed of individual bags uniformly stacked into a single pack and held together with small pin welds.
As found in most stores, to complement the bag pack, a metal wire rack having two laterally spaced apart outward extending support arms is used to suspended the bag pack. At the end of a check-out line, the grocery bagger stands over the rack-mounted bag pack, and dispenses and fills the bags, one at a time.
Each stackable bag in the bag pack is a bag, optionally having pleated sides or bottom, with an open top and upward extending handles. Often times, this sort of bag is described as a t-shirt bag because its appearance is reminiscent of its namesake. Toward the center of the bag opening, between the handles, there is usually a tab with a horizontal aperture cut therein. The tab, by way of the horizontal aperture, is suspended from a center retaining hook located on the rack. After the bag is loaded, the grocery bagger slides the bag handles off of the outward projecting arms which previously suspended them, and detaches the bag from the tab to release the bag from the rack. The individual pin welds are easily separated with only slight tugging. Such a bag pack dispensing system is disclosed in U.S. Reissue Pat. No. RE 33,264 to Baxley et al.
The Baxley system, however, has a drawback, namely, the remnant tabs, left on the rack after each bag is detached, accumulates and must be promptly removed. U.S. Pat. No. 4,877,473 to Snowdon et al. discloses a similar rack mounted plastic bag using a tab, and likewise has the same problem as Baxley, et al.
In a different approach, bag designers have done away with the central tab near the opening and alternatively rely on perforated tabs located in the handle portion. Such a bag is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,759,639 to DeMatters. Such a bag still has a residue problem in that the tabs detached from the handles remain on the suspension arms of the rack.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,074,674 to Kuklies et al. discloses a bag incorporating another approach to solving the residue tab problem of the prior art. Kuklies shows a rack-mounted bag having horizontal apertures located near the top edge of the rear bag wall, and upwardly extending handles. The bags are suspended by the handles from a rack and by a centrally located hook on the rack which latches on to only the rear bag wall via the horizontal aperture. In fact, the front bag wall of the Kuklies bag is not suspended at all.
As a result, in use, the front bag wall need not be detached from the centrally located hook of the rack. According to the disclosure, it has been seen that in this system the front bag wall, if attached, causes binding and separation problems at the point of attachment around the hook. Hence the Kuklies bag does not have the front bag wall suspended from the hook.
Accordingly, a need presently exists for a rack-mounted, stackable bag that can be individually detached from the stack and rack without leaving remnants on the rack. Detaching each bag from the pack should also be performed without complication and wasted motion.